


Good Night

by TeaCub90



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Affection, Anxiety, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Gen, Prompt: And to all a good night, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21945001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaCub90/pseuds/TeaCub90
Summary: ‘I’m slightly on edge,’ he grouses, picks his glasses off and throws them aside. ‘You heard anything from your lot?’
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 33
Collections: 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge





	Good Night

**Author's Note:**

> It's half-midnight; I've been racing to get this finished in-between packing and travelling. Merry Christmas. <3

* * *

‘I need to be still for a while, angel,’ Crowley grumbles, stepping into the shop and shaking the snowflakes out of his hair. It really shouldn’t be snowing – weather-forecasters are baffled, and parents are laughing on the street with their children, taking time from shopping and cooking and snapping at irritating relatives who are getting on their last, stress-driven nerve, to simply _be_ together – but Aziraphale is an angel who lives in Soho. He doesn’t just _hear_ things, he _does_ them as well, and he’s been doing it every few years, whenever the mood takes him. Nothing…lethal to traffic, nothing discomforting, just a little treat for the local area that’s accepted him as a neighbour, that he’s called home for over two-hundred years. A tribute to those who worked here, long since passed on and a treat for those in the here and now.

The world has survived the worst. He wanted to give them something nice.

‘Is everything alright?’ he asks gently from his perch at the back of the shop; offers up his glass of wine. Crowley hisses – he never is adequately dressed for the weather; for the various time-periods they’ve lived in, yes, but now that he has his Bentley, he renders it as good as a coat and wears his usual leather – looking slightly put-upon and more than a little pissed off, to borrow the vulgar phrase from the kids; takes the glass and drains it in one go. Stops short of smashing it against the roaring fireplace (he made the catastrophic mistake of doing that the first time he had a drink in the shop, somewhere around 1799 and Aziraphale’s reaction was Exceedingly Biblical) but sinks into the other chair with a huge groan.

‘I’m slightly on edge,’ he grouses, picks his glasses off and throws them aside. ‘You heard anything from your lot?’

Aziraphale shakes his head, apologetic. ‘I’m afraid not. Why? Has something happened?’ He gets to his feet, book cast aside in favour of hunting down whoever or whatever might have threatened Crowley.

‘Sh, sh, sit down, angel,’ Crowley groans, tugging at his hands. ‘It’s fine – just. I thought I saw Hastur hanging around in Piccadilly. Or _smelt_ him, anyway.’ He wrinkles his nose and Aziraphale raises his eyebrows, sympathetic; understands. That dreadful demon had made the mistake of lingering too close to his shop sometime in the 1950s and the reek of him had taken days to clear, even with the help of a miracle. How, he often wonders, looking at Crowley, long and limber and truly kind, could his demon friend come from the same stock as, well – _that_ lot?

‘He’s still upset about that other demon’s death,’ he volunteers gingerly. It’s just an educated guess but where Haster was, Ligur was never too far behind, by all accounts. Crowley snaps his fingers, grimacing, looking rather – not _guilty,_ exactly, but just… slightly uncomfortable. Caught. Sighing, Aziraphale reaches out to take his hands, twines their fingers together soothingly. Can feel Crowley’s pulse – or something like it, they’ve been on Earth for so long that pulses and heartbeats of humans around them have…rubbed off on them somehow, just a little. Their forms have adapted accordingly, to avoid awkward questions – or maybe that’s just the Almighty’s doing.

‘You’ll be safe here,’ he promises now, glances out at the window, the street beyond that’s still busy with people, doing whatever it is they do on Christmas Eve, bustling hither and thither, last minute shopping and places to be, people to see. ‘I’ll look after you.’

It’s not a promise he needs to make, not to someone who is more than capable of looking after himself, and looking after Aziraphale to boot – but Crowley blinks all the same, his whiskey-amber eyes softening despite the lines beneath; gives one of those little smiles that suggests he isn’t quite sure precisely to do with his face just then. He’s a little cold, Aziraphale notes and draws his hand between his own, rubs it to warm him up.

‘You _must_ start wearing gloves in this weather, you idiot,’ he chides softly, and Crowley hums, lowers his gaze; seems to swallow a little.

(He likes the way Aziraphale calls him an idiot; something that’s the complete opposite of cruel. Something that politely rolls off his tongue and changes the definition of the word, so unlike the harsh way Crowley has said it, to him and other people, harsh and cutting. Just…soft, in all ways the angel is soft).

They share a moment of silence, the only sounds the noises of the people outside and the crackling fire within; the misting rub of Aziraphale’s hands against Crowley’s own, his gentle chiding. Even as he works, he remembers to look at the clock – nearly two in the afternoon. More than enough ample time to have been open; Soho is on its own for now. Nodding at the blinds, he lets them fall, looks the door with a quick nod of the head that also turns the Open sign around to Closed. They have everything they need here.

And if that dreadful fiend Hastur jolly well tries anything, well. Aziraphale won’t be held responsible for his actions – probably even wouldn’t be either, as it would be a classic case of an angel thwarting a demon, casting out evil. A little hypocritical, he considers with a smirk, glancing up at Crowley, but then, well. Crowley has never been like other demons, not by a very, very long straw. No, wait – shot. He and Crowley have tried a lot of shots over the years; he’s clearly in need of a better up-to-date thesaurus for life on earth.

Lucky that he has Crowley, really, to help out with all that.

‘That’s really nice,’ Crowley takes his hand away, only to offer up the other and Aziraphale smirks and obliges him; thinks back to Jesus himself, kneeling to wash the feet of sinners. It’s a slightly complex situation, he understands that, considering their respective backgrounds, but Crowley is a good man; a kind one, which is why the other demons abhor him so.

‘I’ll look after you,’ he promises again; glances up at the tree in the middle of the room, shining and sparkling in decorations brand-new, a giant star gleaming suspiciously brightly at the top. Special effects, you see? Aziraphale does have some rather fond memories of that first Christmas; the excitement of harmonies, of singing with the other angels, of watching over Joseph and Mary from afar, the promise of joy the new-born baby boy would bring.

‘Wasn’t just Hastur,’ Crowley mutters finally. ‘It’s everything, just…’ He frowns out of the windows, now covered safely by the blinds. ‘There’s a lot of anxiety out there right now.’

Aziraphale nods, mouth twisting a little. It’s right up there with the frantic shopper’s energy they’ve felt this year, that they feel every year, really. And yet, this is something that goes deeper still; it’s the opposite of the excitement that children feel, the lucky ones at least. It’s not even fear of running out of time; it’s more…a pressure, pushing down the air. It’s enough to trip an angel right up off their feet and may go a long way to explaining just why Hastur is hanging around. Either that horrible fiend is making it worse, or he’s just come up to have a look and laugh mercilessly about it. Aziraphale would bank on the latter, somehow; he doesn’t think Hell can come up with any worse punishment at Christmas than the humans inflict on themselves.

Of course, if you’re a different kind of demon – if you’re Crowley, for example – then it can also _hurt._ It’s the fright of a human-race who aren’t quite able to leave their problems behind at Christmas. It’s the desire to lose yourself in the season and wondering why it’s not working; wondering why that mental disorder and this unpaid debt and that problem relative are all still so _present,_ despite the promise of temporary reprieve. You can forget, just for a while, but there’s always the fear of it coming back.

It’s why he gives them the snow, so crisp and new and fresh. They deserve a break, just for a little while. It’s right up there with the foodbank that somehow never runs out of products, just around the corner from him and the miraculously empty, suspiciously-warm buildings that only the homeless can seem to find in this corner of the city. Everyone deserves a break, and so does Crowley.

And yet, he’s felt it too; knows without asking that it took Crowley somehow longer to reach him today, the human’s anxiety congealing – the sugary drinks and the heated crowds and the tension headaches all building themselves up, brick by brick, serving as some kind of physical barrier on his route to the shop, lending a clumsiness in his usual slink. The difficulty in simply getting to Aziraphale’s side – like a human trying to get home to their loved ones for Christmas, he was held back by the worrisome heat of the world around him, brought it inside with him like a child brings in the thick rain-drops from a thunderstorm.

Really, though, Crowley is right, what they do need is in fact _stillness,_ after a year spent scrambling frantically to save the earth and then holding their breath for a while, wondering if Heaven or Hell might call their bluff and strike back after all.

But there’s nothing; just Christmas Eve as usual, and the shop with a crackling fire, and the tree that Crowley generously gifted him. There are also several wreaths of ivy scattered around in an aesthetically-pleasing fashion, although since that unfortunate incident with the Metatron and Shadwell, he’s decided firmly against having candles of any sort in the shop, not least because any reminder of the fire sends Crowley several shades paler. And if they’re going to hunker down here for a day or three, well… He sees no need to venture out until at least Boxing Day, unless the demon gets restless in the meantime. There’s milk in the parlour and three different kinds of Yule Log in the pantry; it should suffice.

‘Is your Bentley parked up safely?’ he asks although he knows that ‘safe’ is a very flexible definition in this case. Crowley gives an _OK_ signal over his wine, which means it’s probably blocking a proper parking space with a miraculous absence of contention from the shoppers and neighbours. ‘Alright, then. I’ll put the kettle on; put your feet up?’

He lets Crowley’s hand go with a gentle squeeze to the fingers, a smile and goes to make tea. Wine will come later but tea is good for the fretfulness he can feel quivering off Crowley’s shoulders, seeping into the spaces beneath his eyes.

‘Thanks, angel,’ he hears Crowley murmur quietly, as he potters around the back with the teabags and he smiles to himself, gets out the shortbread.

As the sun sets into the promise of a Christmas day impending, on the basis that everybody should shut up and goes to bed now, Aziraphale calls for two trays of sushi (and a bundle of hot chips) to be delivered, shares it with Crowley who adds a lot of vinegar to the chips and eats his meal cross-legged on the floor by his feet while his record-player trills out gentle classics in the background.

They don’t talk much; just sit together, listen to the music and the sound of their own, shared silence. After six-thousand years of friendship, it feels like the most comfortable of waistcoats, the most fitting of shoes. There’s a lot to be said for simply having company at Christmas; the kind of company that knows you better than anybody else in the world and as Aziraphale tucks into a slice of Yule Log with cream, he watches Crowley wanders between the shelves up above, not reading the books but simply inspecting them, losing himself momentarily in the dust and time of literary classics (something he does every five years or so. Aziraphale wonders if it’s a unique form of time-travel; an attempt to find something lost to the centuries they once lived. What precisely that might be, he couldn’t say). It always seems to interest him, somehow; just the sheer prospect of authors writing words that others want to read, cocking his hip against the bookshelf with his tongue out, his eyebrow crooked, before promptly hopping back down to join Aziraphale (right about the time when he’s opening the second bottle of wine, funnily enough).

‘Feeling better?’ Aziraphale asks lightly, holding out a full glass; Crowley smiles, that cheeky, rakish thing that reaches his eyes and tips his head against his shoulder – before promptly stealing the rest of Aziraphale’s second slice of Yule Log. Foul fiend.

Eventually, he dozes off on the sofa as Aziraphale quietly reads _A Christmas Carol_ to him – it’s suitably scary and cryptic enough, so it’s become something of a favourite and for all that Crowley claims he doesn’t like to read, he certainly seems to enjoy being read _to._ Aziraphale watches carefully over the edge of the book, faithfully reciting the second coming of Jacob Marley, as Crowley’s eyelids grow heavier and heavier; waits for the second when he has to snap his fingers to save the dangerously-tilting glass from a slackening hand, transports it safely over to the desk for Crowley to enjoy later when he wakes.

‘Really,’ he chides, smiling while he draws the throw over his friend’s sleeping form; places his glasses on the desk next to the wine glass and pushes his hair back with care.

‘May you have some lovely dreams, dear,’ he whispers, right into his ear – follows it up with a tender kiss to the temple, enjoying the sheer _thereness_ of his friend’s presence and watching that curled-up form unravel and relax against the cushions. It wouldn’t be the first time – nor even the first Christmas, in fact – when he’s read along to the sounds of Crowley’s gentle snoring in the back, alleviating the loneliness that too many centuries on earth can give you.

Picking up his book again, he takes another sip of wine and settles in to read, comfortable and happy, waiting for the dawn to arrive.

*


End file.
